Sage Karam's team falls out of Rolex 24 at Daytona

Nazareth’s Sage Karam went into a zone he had never experienced before Sunday’s Rolex 24 hours of Daytona.

Unfortunately, by the time he got into the Chip Ganassi Racing prototype for the first time, it was already out of contention for a victory.

The Ford Ecoboost/Riley prototype on which Karam was one of four drivers, retired after completing just 610 laps and placed 43rd overall in prestigious endurance sports car race.

Karam, the 2013 Firestone Indy Lights champion, was teamed with Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas and Jamie McMurray for the twice-around-the-clock event on the road course at Daytona International Speedway.

The car started eighth on Saturday afternoon but had a cumulative pit time of more than 98 minutes before finally dropping out of the race with less than two hours to go.

Pruett, the most experienced driver on the team, hit the wall less than nine hours into the event and repairs took more than 50 minutes, after which Pruett took it for a shakedown run before turning it over to the 18-year-old Nazareth High School senior.

So, while Karam first thought he would be in the car at about 8 p.m. Saturday, he didn’t get the wheel until about 2 a.m. Sunday.

“I’m dead tired,” Karam said by telephone Sunday evening. “I didn’t sleep at all before I got in the car. I’ve never driven at 2 in the morning, and I’ve never driven more than an hour at a time. It was also the first time [racing] in a car with a roof over my head. It was a completely different experience.”

Karam said the car was already more than 30 laps behind when he got in for the first of his two long stints, and “it was all bent up when I was driving, so I was pretty much just doing laps. The whole time, I drove a crippled car, but we were still able to run some competitive laps, which is a shame because we were already too far behind.”

His first stint was 2 hours, 15 minutes, and then he took a three-hour nap before getting back into the car between 8 and 10:30 a.m.

“I got close to six hours, and a lot of rookies don’t get that much time,” he said. “They gave me good track time, and it was really fun. I’ll never forget those six hours.

“It definitely wasn’t boring, because you’re passing like 10 cars a lap, so that was definitely really cool. I think it’s on to something, I think you’re going to see this series grow in the next few years and it’s going to become really popular.”

So, does he want to do it again?

“Yeah, I want to do it again,” Karam said. “Now that I’ve learned about the race and have some experience, I can go next year with some expectations if I have a chance. When I knew the race was out of hand my main goal was to do my job, don’t put a wheel wrong, show the guys I can still run competitive times and improve myself. I think we did that. I’m only 18. I think I’ll have a lot more shots at the race.”

Karam, who does not have a ride for the 2014 season but is still hopeful that something good might come out of this latest chance, will spend a week in Florida before returning home.

“Then I hit the mats,” he said, referring to the wrestling team at Nazareth. He is among the top-ranked wrestlers in District 11 and the state but has not wrestled a match in 2014.